Contents of HACCP Plans; Critical Control Points

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is publishing this document to ensure that the owners and operators of federally inspected establishments are aware that the identification of appropriate critical control points is crucial to complying with the Agency's regulations on hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) systems. The HACCP system regulations require that a HACCP plan list critical control points for each food safety hazard identified as reasonably likely to occur in the production process. The number of critical control points will depend upon the production process and the hazard, but a HACCP plan must specify as critical control points the points, steps, or procedures at which control can be applied and, as measured by critical limits, occurrence of the hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level, and at a minimum, the critical limits must be designed to ensure that applicable targets or performance standards established by FSIS, and any other requirement in the Agency's regulations pertaining to the specific process or product, are met. These requirements implement FSIS's judgment that whenever a food safety hazard is reasonably likely to occur in the production process, by applying control measures, the establishment can at least reduce the hazard to an acceptable level, even if it cannot entirely prevent or eliminate its occurrence.